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Despite key differences, an important similarity links the current conflict in Afghanistan to the 1970-1975 Cambodian war: increasing US reliance on air power against a heterogeneous insurgency. Moreover, in the past few years, as fighting has continued in Afghanistan supported by US air power, Taliban forces have benefited politically, recruiting among an anti-US Afghan constituency that appears to have grown even as the insurgents suffer military casualties.

In Cambodia, it was precisely the harshest, most extreme elements of the insurgency who survived the US bombing, expanded in numbers, and then won the war. The Khmer Rouge grew from a small force of fewer than 10,000 in 1969 to over 200,000 troops and militia in 1973.

During that period, their recruitment propaganda successfully highlighted the casualties and damage caused by US bombing. Within a broader Cambodian insurgency, the radical Khmer Rouge leaders eclipsed their royalist, reformist, and pro-Hanoi allies as well as defeating their enemy, the pro-US Cambodian government of Lon Nol, in 1975.

The Nixon Doctrine had proposed that the United States could supply an allied Asian regime with the materiel to withstand internal or external challenge while the US withdrew its own ground troops or remained at arm's length.

1 posted on 07/10/2010 9:10:14 PM PDT by Pride_of_the_Bluegrass

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2 posted on 07/10/2010 9:15:15 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo (FR....Monthly Donors Wanted.)

To: Pride_of_the_Bluegrass

Different war totally.

Our Allies in Cambodia were the Hmong and Gen. Vang Pao.

We armed them and supported them, with good effect for a long time. Then we pulled out and abandoned them. Many Hmong made it to the U.S., those that survived the retribution after our pull out. Most exited through Thailand.

Bombing on the Ho Chi Minh trail is another matter.

Our Press in the U.S. defeated us in SE Asia then.

3 posted on 07/10/2010 9:22:03 PM PDT by Texas Fossil (Government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.)

To: Pride_of_the_Bluegrass

Wasn’t Effin’ Kerry there?

4 posted on 07/10/2010 9:23:41 PM PDT by Libloather (Tea totaler, PROUD birther, mobster, pro-lifer, anti-warmer, enemy of the state, extremist....)

To: Pride_of_the_Bluegrass

Sorry meant Laos not Cambodia.

It is late.

5 posted on 07/10/2010 9:23:54 PM PDT by Texas Fossil (Government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.)

To: Pride_of_the_Bluegrass

I have a good friend who did 3 tours in SE Asia. He was in the places we said we weren’t. Laos and Cambodia (etc). We discussed this at great length over a span of time. I was never there.

7 posted on 07/10/2010 9:26:30 PM PDT by Texas Fossil (Government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.)

To: Pride_of_the_Bluegrass

Blue:

You appear to imagine that this article has more than a passing resemblance to objective reality. It is propaganda.

In fact, it is recycling stale propaganda from the Vietnam war.

14 posted on 07/11/2010 1:12:31 AM PDT by DoorGunner ("Rom 11: until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 26 and so, all Israel will be saved")

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